“Today, she’s the boss.” Directed by Ken Whittingham, he’s best known for directing 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Entourage, The Office, and Scrubs. It turns out two out of five is bad. This being Whittingham’s one and only episode of Ugly Betty. The first of Oliver Goldstick’s 2 episodes, he’s written for Desperate Housewives, far too much Pretty Little Liars, and the jailable offense of writing High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. I.e, using a sponge to drain the Disney bucket of ideas truly dry.

With Daniel acting like his mother and drinking a bar dry the night before, during Thanksgiving, he wakes up in Betty’s bed, on Betty’s Little Mermaid bedsheets, and staring Betty in the face. Ok, it is a graduation picture on her nightstand, but it’s still nice to have the comedy of Daniel sleeping in Betty’s bed alive for another minute. So while he’s drying out in Casa de la Suarez, Betty heads in to do some work – only for Wilhelmina to get a call mid-interrogation of Marc, that baby East, North, Beckham, Windsor, cracked out movie star, whatever will be first seen in Mode.

As Daniel vomits over half of Queens, Betty, Amanda, Sofia, Wilhelmina, Marc, Christina, and a select few others need to prep for a magazine-exclusive photoshoot in three hours. Oh, and Sofia wanted to know if Daniel could be a papi, Santos is asked to act like one, and Betty becomes the boss, deciding how to shoot a family photo for whatever celebrity parallel this was supposed to be in 2006/07. Katie Holmes and the garden gnome that sits outside L Ron Hubbard’s house, rubbing the inside of his pocket? If you’re having a baby, to borrow a phrase from Regina George, “I don’t want to see that f’ugly thing”.

So, while Betty is getting it in the ear from Dr Zeltzer for just being the assistant, as her lush of a boss spreads carrots around her house, Sofia is looking for the man of the hour. Meanwhile, following Marc and Amanda’s little Nancy Drew moment, Wilhelmina is on the warpath, only slightly halted by Bradford’s insistence that baby f’ugly be shot and gone with her parents in the timeline they had agreed to. A whole three hours, on the day after Thanksgiving. Great timing, guys.

With Daniel getting weezy at Ignacio’s huevos and running a temperature that simply reads “Man flu,” he’s out of action. Though as he tried to sneak out of the house, he did hear Justin worried about the family not doing Christmas, or particularly not decorating the Christmas tree. So, like every raging sociopath who grew up in a broken, but very rich household, Daniel calls the company florist and gets a tree delivered within the hour. Because when you have rich people levels of money, that’s what you do.

Once he dries up and the family manages to pull the big tree through the front door, he helps decorate the tree and finally gets the meaning of family at Christmas. That, of course, is the true theme: Parental figures or what it means to be family. Something that Santos takes great offense to, as his son reads a high-fashion magazine and goes to fabric stores. Yes, it seems the story has already begun of Justin being a gay teenager in 2006, which to some doesn’t feel too long ago, so how different could it be?

Ya know, I’ve heard that in some schools, they are actually nice to the LGBTQ+IA kids now? You aren’t bullied because of that now, you’re just bullied because the other kid is having trouble and they are picking other things to belittle you about. To my editor (and me), that’s the biggest lie from this side of a political lectern there has ever been, and to anyone born before the year 2000 it sounds equally insane. I got called gay for having something other than a normal school bag, for the love of god.

2006 might be 20 years ago, but 20 years ago, there were people on our staff who were called gay (or slurs) in a derogatory way for simply being alive. Now I’m no saint, I’ve made comments that are derogatory about someone’s sexuality, too, though that’s mostly to those who are homophobic or transphobic. Honey, if you’re going to hold up a sign like a fruit saying trans people don’t exist, I’m going to call you an apple. My point is that this was big for 2006, and we’re just starting.

Ordered by Bradford, Wilhelmina is sent to JFK to pick up baby F’ugly and the parents to do the shoot at Mode, only for the car to get a flat tire. Now, I know I’ve been picky before, but I think I’m about to set the record for the nittiest nitpick in the universe. New York City is terribly designed! So Meade Publications is in the Woolworth Building, we saw that in “Pilot,” which is in the Financial District, so the fastest way there is to come off the Williamsburg Bridge and head north on the expressway?

By the time you’re pulling off to head East on the Long Island Expressway and head south again on Van Wyck, you might as well just be heading to LaGuardia. No one thought of direct routes? I know it is (big) apples to oranges, but to go from The Caledonian or even The Sheraton to Edinburgh airport can be done easily in 15 minutes, 12 if the Western Approach isn’t a nightmare. 20-25 minutes tops if you’re coming from the likes of Easter Road. Not only does this nonsense add on several miles, but it’s probably the reason Wilhelmina’s asking hookers for money.

Putting aside my annoyance that New York is designed like your morning ablutions, those scenes with Wilhelmina and Marc are great. Not only the tension of how twisted she’s going to be when she realizes it was him and Amanda in her office, then her anger, but also the scenes after they are kicked out of the cab. “Ok, back off, girlfriend. Stop pawing my piece, unless you’re gonna show me some Benji’s, ya know what I’m saying?,” I don’t think a severely autistic 17-year-old man talking to a hooker could do any worse. It is brilliant!

To have the fabulous, beautiful, stunning, and magnificent Vanessa Williams dressed like the most expensive hooker you’ll ever see, in the middle of a New York industrial estate, talking to these two lovely connoisseurs of the corner. Then, in a crack-den crossed with a church, where she breaks open the box with the church’s donations. The whole thing is brilliant; it shows Wilhelmina in such a different, dingy, horrible light. The church is also where she lets slip that she plans to take over the company, presumably with the mystery woman.

For the most part, “Four Thanksgivings and a Funeral” never really did big reveals to push our main stories forward, just that Fey’s corpse isn’t in the tomb, and Marc and Amanda’s call to the mystery woman. “Lose The Boss” does a lot that not only sets up how we move forward but ripples throughout the show itself, with Marc blackmailing Wilhelmina over the knowledge that she plans to take over Meade Publications as a whole, not just become the EIC of Mode.

Meanwhile, Daniel effectively protects Justin when Santos is being a “typical” dad of this time, Betty plants both orthopedic pumps and becomes the boss, and Sofia does something that is going to change the whole show for a while. Betty gets offered a job at Sofia’s magazine weeks before it launches, and – almost surprisingly – Daniel gives Betty that push she needs to go. Not because he wants some pin-thin model back in that position (and a few others), but because he knows that’s what she always wanted. What could go wrong?

Well, some guys cosplaying as ICE Agents show up at the front door and take Ignacio without even a goodbye, for one. I mean, clearly they aren’t ICE Agents; they’re wearing suits, showing badges, stating their own names, stating clearly why they are there, not tackling an old man to the ground, and generally being civil about the whole thing. They look nothing like ICE Agents: Who don’t state intent, don’t show badge numbers, don’t state names, take anyone they feel like, and can very easily be mistaken for tactical Dog the Bounty Hunter cosplayers trying to kidnap women and children for documented sexual abuse.

Of course, I’m being facetious, but this is what I mean by big ripples. Wilhelmina couldn’t do the basic thing of picking up “baby Chutney” and parents, Daniel wasn’t in the office, so Betty stepped up, and eventually Daniel’s idea prevails. Marc is blackmailing Wilhelmina, Betty gets a job offer from Sofia, Santos can’t comprehend that his son is gay, we see the family (and Daniel) are supportive of Justin, and to top it off, Ignacio is about to be deported. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows, that’s good drama.

Ultimately, “Lose the Boss” is one of my favorite episodes of Ugly Betty, even if it isn’t the best quality-wise. There is so much going on, and there is so much that is memorable for the good and – 2006 internalized-homophobic – bad. The theme doesn’t hamper the episode; it makes it stronger, and that’s what makes it such a better episode than “Four Thanksgivings and a Funeral.” Could I do without Bob Clendenin trying to play gay and being a catty diva? Probably, but there is always going to be a weak spot.

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Ugly Betty "Lose the Boss"

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• All the drama.
• The family and Daniel are supporting Justin.
• Everything with Venessa Williams after that cab.

Cons

• Some of the "camp" is a little too much to be fun or serious.